The last few days Matthew and I have been preparing the garden. Home Depot and Miracle Gro are back visiting our roof garden this weekend to make more Gardeniere videos. The entire crew is so great to work with, they really make me feel at ease, especially when I have to 9 takes because I can’t remember the word “home center”. This time around we are doing more how to videos for urban gardeners who don’t have a backyard to grow in, this mean lots of tips on container and bucket gardening! It’s really fun to show everyone around the garden and talk about what’s growing and how anyone can grow – no matter if you have a farm, yard, rooftop or fire escape.

Later in the afternoon, it began raining, but rain does not start gardening! So we trekked on. I’m sorry in advance if I look like a wet puppy.

I was also spoiled with some Earl Gray. It made a early Saturday morning that I’m usually asleep much better!

Also check it out, I’m in Food Network Magazine. What a surprise!

To prepare for this shoot we had to stock up on some Miracle Gro potting mix. We’ve been using this stuff for years, potting mix is the only way to go for container gardening.

Then I had to stop by Gowanus Nursery. What a great place, it was my first time there. I picked up some strawberry plants and salad green mix.

There was also a dinosaur there which makes this place even cooler.

Now comes the hard work, but first a picture of me in the back up of a parked pick up truck because I’ve never climbed into a back of a pickup truck. Ever.

Very heavy bags of potting mix get carried from the truck down a few stairs to the freight elevator. This all needs to be done by hand. Then it goes up the freight elevator to the 5th floor. Then it gets pushed and carried down the longest hallway. Then there’s stairs, 2 flights of them. That means you lift one bag at a time. This is not a job for the weak. Just a job for the crazy.

Then Matthew, my strong man, carries them all up. At the top of the stairs I am waiting with a little dolly.

With 3 or 4 bags at a time, I push them with all my strength across the roof. This might look easy, but it’s not. There’s no handle on the dolly, so I push a small cart with my hands on a bag. This dolly is close to maximum weight so it’s so hard to push. The amount of times that a bag falls off, the cart tips over, or I sit on the ground and cry is alot.

Finally when we get them all over, I take a nap. I hate manual labor.

So now we prepare the boxes to get them all camera ready.

The supplies of my life. I can’t wait to show you all the videos we’ve been making!

In other garden news:We are hardening off the cucumbers, watermelon and pumpkin seedlings which will be transplanted to their containers in a few days!

We spotted the first broccoli head, omg yes!! HUGS! LOVE! GREAT!!

Added another Rhododendron to the family because I’m absolutely in love with them. Now we have pink, white and red. It’s my dream come true!

Picked lettuce and spinach for the first time of the season. Ate it and swooned, so crisp and delicious!

In food news:
Picked some lettuce and cilantro and put it into a black bean, avocado salad for dinner. This is such a simple meal, but it’s so good.

Been back on a peanut butter and jelly kick. We usually snack on these late in the afternoon while sitting in the shade to take a break from gardening.

We also treated ourselves to ice cream. Matthew got cookie dough, and I got chocolate and vanilla soft serve. We put in the freezer, got a shower, grabbed our ice cream and ate it in bed. Bofinkles helped me eat it. This was such a treat after a day full of sun headaches.

We’ve had cheeseburgers 3 times this week and I’ve loved every single time. Matthew is a champion at making burgers, he does the meat seasoning so good. Also, check out those fries. Did you know ARBY’s sells their curly fries at supermarkets? I was shocked and thrilled. If you love ARBY’s fries you will not be disappointed by these, they were great.

Had a needed work brainstorming meeting at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants, Kum Kau. This giant bowl of pork, cabbage, noodle soup was only $5.50. And you get free unlimited crispy noodles! And their homemade best in the world duck sauce! And tea! I love that place.

In cat news:
Essy fell asleep so hard. I watched her from the minute she started to drift, to her head going lower and lower and lower, until it bounced off the desk. She didn’t wake up.

Bofinkles also passed out. Against a wall. She was out.

When she finally woke up, she looked at me and yawned. Then she went back to sleep.

I told Xanadu many times how much I love her.

She’s just my girl. My very curious, intelligent, trouble maker girl.

We got a ROOMBA (best thing ever), cats were fascinated by it for the first few days. Days later, they don’t seem to care about it.

Everyone was more fascinated by the box. Boxes are super cool to cats.

Brother Bear showed up to the box party, laid on it and caved it in. And we loved him because of it. He is perfect.

Bofinkles tanned. I tried to get her to look but as soon as I said her name, she hopped up, ran to the camera and smothered me in kisses.

The cats got me a Mothers Day balloon. 🙂

In other news that I don’t know where it fits:
These are my favorite sunglasses. I got a pair in Disney World in 2011 and in 2012 they broke during the summer. I was devastated. My friend Erin was in Disney World a few weeks ago and shipped me a new pair. Erin is the best. I love these glasses!

We cleaned up some of our props in the loft. The last few years we have accumulated many props but it’s hard to get rid of them. Each one tells a story, makes us remember a time. Sadly though our props aren’t usually small and we’re running out of prop space. Some of these in this picture were thrown away, and by thrown away I mean put by the trash can where almost always someone in our apartment building saves them and gives it a few more months of fun.

Goodnight moon.

Here’s to happy weekends! Hope you are having a great one, are you doing anything fun?

What a full week! Congratulations on the Food Network magazine bit –how fun. I’ve planted flowers and carrots this weekend. We are a little behind on planting since we had snow on May 1! Hoping to get my beans, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs all planted this week.

That sounds like a great time! It’s crazy about the weather, right? We’re about a month behind here just because the weather can’t make up it’s mind. Last year at this time we were picking full heads of broccoli and the sugar snap peas were 8 feet tall, but this year, we’re still growing to get here!

Seeing all the stairs that the bags of soil were carried up makes me feel guilty for complaining about carrying it into the back yard of our house! I can’t wait to see pictures of your garden as it grows! The avocado salad looks simply amazing! That is defiantly my kind of meal! Have a wonderful week!

[…] to garden. There’s hardly any back yards, community gardens have waiting lines and hauling potting soil to your rooftop is a bit too intense for some people. But don’t worry – you can still grow […]